A Demon's Heart
by iTaleTeller
Summary: Can't really think of a good summary. FriedxMirajane, set during the S-class tournament. T for blood and mild swears
1. Chapter 1

Pain. Absolute pain. Terrible, overwhelming pain. Did it hurt so much because the one casting the spell piercing his body was his former master, and the greatest father figure he had known in years, Purehito? Or because he knew that, with himself defeated, there would be nobody who could take on Grimoire Heart's Master Pure— no, Hades. That was the name he had given himself. The name of an underworld God. How fitting for a man who had betrayed his own guild, his family, his nakama, in favor of brute sternght and the key to a collossal magical power.

In all his years, Makarov never dreamed such a situation would happen. He had always dreamed his first encounter with master Purehito would be on his retirement, that he would chase after the old man who had taught him and given him his own position, and be reunited and remember the old days on the guild, and laugh together, brothers, family, mages of Fairy Tail.

Not for a minute would he have conceived the idea that Purehito would change so much as to mutate his name and form a Dark Guild.

And yes, that pained him so. Between that pain and the pain of the piercing magic casted on his chest, Makarov wouldn't have known which one was the one that hurt him the most.

As he fell, his mind already becoming numb with the blood loss and pain, Makarov could see master Hades' face. A smirk of triumph twisted his features into something dark, something sinister. And on that brief glimpse the old man could tell: the man standing before him was no longer his beloved master. Something dark and terrible had taken him over, and if he wished to destroy his guild, Makarov would not put it easy for him.

With a tremendous effort, the guild master tried to draw his mind into a blank. To silence the pain. To silence the sorrow. To silence the crawling of the shinigami coming to lure his soul away.

And in the absolute silence of his mind, Makarov prayed.

_It isn't... over yet... reach... the one who will inherit my will..._

_

* * *

_

The rocky desert he wandered on was many things, but hospitable. Even with a couple dozen small plants popping out in the sand every now and then, the place had an aura of misery and loneliness that was hardly comfortable.

The man knew he had to go through this to find himself again. To regain his sense of belonging into his guild. And maybe, just maybe, be accepted by his grandfather as a member of his guild again.

He had never realized it, but he liked the guild's enviroment. Even with the usual ruckus, Natsu challenging him to a battle he had no way of winning every couple of days, and the two Phantom kids, Gajille and Juvia, the guild had a way of making him feel at home he had never experienced nowhere else.

Whom he missed the most where his fellow bodyguards, the raijinshuu. Fried, Evergreen and Bixlow had been the only ones close to him for a long time, always holding his back tho he never felt like he needed them, never issuing a mere 'thanks' to them. And he missed them _so_ much.

The hope of seeing them again was a part of what kept him moving. And moving was he, when something forced his halt.

It was vague. Not a gust of wind, or a spray of heat. This was different. Like something had snuck behind his skin and penetrated deep into his heart – into his magic. Although it wasn't uncomfortable at all... it felt like... and invitation. The young man had no other words for it. Somewhere, at some point, someone was asking him to return.

Turning to the place he had been walking from – the place Fairy Tail was, Laxus couldn't help but shiver and wonder.

_What is... this feeling?_

* * *

"I'm telling you," called Gildartz with a grin "Natsu will be the one to become an S-class magician."

"No way," called Fried, sitting in a barrel with one of his legs crossed over the other. "if you had seen the way Kana and Lucy fought, you wouldn't believe anybody but them had a chance at it."

"That's true!" merrily agreed Boxlow, flashing his tongue before his friend and the older S-class mage. "That drunkie and the cosplayer sure had some heart on the fight!"

"Fight! Fight! Fight!" echoed Bixlow's 'babies', this time in the form of five winged wooden-head dolls.

Gildarts merely chuckled and looked at Tenrou Island, the mushroom-shaped grounds where the S-class advancement test was being held. After letting Natsu pass, he had chosen to return to the guild, along with Fried and Bixlow, who were beaten by Kana and Lucy. So the three of them had rode on the boat and were currently sailing towards the continent of Fiore, back to Fairy Tail.

And then Fried joked, something so weird on the green-haired man both Bixlow and Gildartz broke into laughter.

"Woah Fried! Who woulda known you had some humour in you!" giggled the masked man, immediately followed by an echo of his 'babies' "Don't you think, Gildartz?"

But no reply came the old man's way. Both Fried and Bixlow looked at him, trying to see why he wasn't talking. What they found made them feel a chill all through their bones.

Gildartz was sitting very still on his place, eyes widened, pupils shrunk to a mere dot, veins popping all over his face and neck, his skin so pale it was almost transparent. In all, the strongest mage of Fairy Tail looked... scared.

_Gildartz, scared... what in the world could bring him to feel such a thing?_ Wondere Fried, albeit not too sure he wanted to know the answer.

For the old man, what he felt was, despite what his fellow fairies would think, nothing new. He had experienced plenty of fear growing up, and on his misions as a rookie in fairy tail. Most S-rank missions were frightening too, let alone the SS-rank mission he couldn't fulfill because of the black dragon chewing on his arm, leg and part of his liver. Gildartz was no foreigner to fear.

Yet this feeling... this wasn't normal fear... it was something else... as if a wind had come with the stench of death on it. A call. A call for blood and despair, emitted from the mouth of his beloved ones.

And for this, Gildartz dreaded.

"We go back." Calmly muttered the poorly shaved man. Fried and Bixlow remained in their seats. Then Gildartz turned back, his back twisted into a mask of anger that could barely hide the fear in his features. "HAVEN'T YOU HEARD! WE GO BACK TO TENROU ISLAND! **NOW!**"

* * *

**Author's Note: So I've been working on a fic, Miss Titania Contest, a fic where 7 girls from the guild fight each other to see who's the strongest (since we all know Gildartz kicks all the guys' round the globe). It'd also be a multishipping fic, one of the couples being FriedxMira. And this fic came to me first as a flashback from that fic, in which Fried is checking on Mira at Poluchska's place after she survives the explosion (which she WILL, mind you. She will, or I'll go kick Mashima's ass so hard I'll make Gildartz proud). And then the whole story started taking more form and content and this came out. There are probably gonna be 2 more chapters, 3 at the most.**

**Hope you liked, and that I could keep the guys true to their personalities. See ya next chapter.**

**Moc2**


	2. Chapter 2

Fried flew around the woods, his body decomposed into thousands of his _yami no ecriture_ letters. Even if Gildartz had warned both him and Bixlow to keep their magic powers at their fullest for whatever was waiting for them at the island, the green-haired mage knew the fastest way for him to recognize said 'whatever' was to use his magic-sensing, body-spreading, fast travelling spell.

And so he had, for some minutes, and had felt the magic surrounding the area, strong as the first time he had set foot on it, with it's multitude of spells running through heaven and earth, crawling deep inside the trees through their roots, filling the water courses like a glorious toxin, powering the inhabiting animals to an extent never dreamed before. In that state, as close to magic as he could, it wasn't hard for Fried to see why Tenrou Island was the homeland of the Fairy guild. One could almost expect to see the mythical creatures dancing around, spreading their powers on the surroundings.

Yet there was more magic in the grounds than that of fairies. Something dark lurked around. Something hidden, evil, forbidden. Fried's spells couldn't tell what they were, but his conscious, though scattered, agreed on one thought: it was not good.

The writing mage halted his flight and rearmed himself, feeling uneasy as to where to head. There were many cores of evil magic, and he could feel his friends' powers fighting them.

It was just a matter of choices. Go this way, go that way, go that other way. It should be easy, just go help your friends. But for some reason, Fried couldn't decide on a path.

He closed his eyes and decomposed himself again, regaining his feel-the-magic sense. There were eight cores of evil magic, all surrounded by fairy magic except for three. He could easily drop in one of the places where the fairies were more numerous and finish the slaying, but something kept him at bay. He sensed around again. He felt Gray, Kana and Lucy running off to a point, and Loki's curious Stellar Spirit energy fighting against another being with his same, although darker, energy. Elfman and Ever's energys were very low, as opposed to the dark one they were fighting. Natsu, Wendy, Master Makarov and the three cats were together, parting from a very weakened dark mage, heading towards the greatest core of evil magic. Erza was alongside Juvia fighting another evil prescence. Levy was with a weakened Gajille. The sixth core of evil was motionless. The seventh was on the move, and the Fairy it was closer to was Lisanna, who remained still, the one fairy not moving, not fighting, not doing anything, even when she didn't feel like she was harmed.

_What's wrong with you, Lisanna? What's keeping you there, so quiet? Why aren't you fighting along with Mira—_

But his thoughts died on that same moment. Uncounsciously, the teen mage had flown his way to the youngest take-over whitehead, and became aware of another magical power. One so weak, so battered, it barely felt alive. Fried added that to the evil mage moving away from them, and drew one conclussion:

_God no... please don't let it be her!_

His destination finally clear in mind, Fried sped up towards Lisanna.

* * *

The place was a clear. Not a natural one, that he could tell. There were marks of fire magic around the place, but the erratic nature of it made Fried assume something more brutal than a fire like Natsu's had been through there. And if someone had a magic more brutal than a fire dragonslayer, Fried did _not_ want to cross paths with them.

After scanning the area, the characters pulled together to form a physical body again. Only a few feet from Lisanna, all Fried had to do was go around the tree that blocked his sight and find who the other wounded fairy was, and try to help her... or him (oh, how he wished it was a him) escape death.

Then why didn't he move? What was the feeling that stacked him to the floor? Of course, he knew the answer all along, but it wasn't until he pressed his hand on the tree and saw his limb shaking that he managed to speak out the word.

_Fear._ Fried felt fear. But why? The mage with the violent magic was nowhere close; neither were the overgrown animals on the island, so his life was far from being in peril. And then he realized, he didn't fear for himself.

What if it _was_ Mirajane the badly wounded person he had felt? As he drew closer and the magic power started growing clearer, he had turned off his sensing ability. He didn't want it to be Mirajane. But it didn't _have_ to be Mirajane. After all, there were eighteen fairies in the island, leaving Happy out. And Mira was an S-class magician. She'd know better than to let someone beat her to a bleeding pulp like that. And his sensors hadn't found Mest either. So there was no real reason to worry. It couldn't be Mira. It just couldn't. And Fried just couldn't move enough to find out.

What if it _was_ her? And what if she was _dead_? The thought sped through his mind before he could stop it, turning the woods into a graveyard in a rainy day, a gravestone erected, the name of Mirajane embossed on the stone.

Fried immediately dashed from his hideout and ran to Lisanna and her wounded partner, jumping fallen trees, making his way to the center of the crate they laid, desperate to see something, some_one_ that would erase the gravestone from his eyes. He ran and kneeled in the ground next to the youngest take-over mage and grabbed her by the shoulder, his eyes despising the anxiousness he felt, averting themselves from the body.

"Lisanna!" if Fried had been any more self-conscious, he'd have found the high pitch on his voice very odd. "Lisanna! Are you okay? What happened?"

At first the girl didn't reply. She didn't look at him. Her body stayed kneeled in the floor, hands hanging on her sides, eyes dug into the person laying next to her. All that sent too many chills down Fried's spine, who still couldn't bring himself to face the wounded fairy. He grabbed Lisanna by the shoulders and shook her; only then did the girl realize she wasn't alone anymore.

"Fried..." she whispered with a broken voice "Fried..."

"Lisanna, what the hell happened in here?" shouted Fried, not realizing he was screaming at the top of his lungs, with tears gathering on his eyes.

The girl tilted her head back at the bloodied person laying before them and whispered only one word:

"Onee-san..."

* * *

"_Even if you feel lonely, you're not alone" she had said with a __heartfelt smile as she cut his hair "because you will always have me" and on that moment, he felt for the first time like he mattered._

It was odd how his fingers deattached themselves from the girl's shoulder and fell through the air, taking seconds, minutes, hours as they traced a curve and laid motionless on his side. Tears strolled down his eyes through his face, but he didn't feel them. His jaw was loose, widening every passing moment, which felt to the green-haired mage like an hour. It was all so slow, so paused, so meaningless... because the one thing he cared about, the one thing that had slowly thrust itself into the center of his universe now laid before him, bruised and broken, a small pool of blood forming on her surroundings.

"_I know how painful losing Laxus was for you" she had commented, even though he hadn't uttered a word to nobody about the whole thing. But she could tell. She could always tell. "I felt the same when Lisanna died" and as tears ran through her face, Fried felt the newcome compulsion to hug her and reassure her he'd never leave her side._

How more could he lose? The excomunication of Laxus had been devastating, even if he hadn't let it show. But even the pain of losing his team leader didn't come close to what he felt now.

"_See Fried?" she had beamed, her smile so wide__ on his eyes it eclipsed the sun "just as Lisanna came back you have to be sure, you'll see Laxus again" and surrounded by her warmth, Fried didn't have a doubt her words were sincere._

For Laxus would return, eventually. Even if it took him many years, there would come a day the Fairy guild would see his shape on the doorframe again. But how can you sit and wait, or go and chase after someone you know has gone to the most unreachable location on the universe? How can you pretend it's alright, when a person who made you feel like there was a Heaven ahead had been swallowed by the nothingness and left you to fall alone into Hell?

"_I'm really glad you're doing missions again." she chirped as she got the paperwork for his upcoming mission done "It makes me feel like you'll stay with us forever." And he desired to let her know only with ehr smiles she'd have him on the Guild as long as he lived._

"Mira..." he whispered, trying to caress his face. Yet his limb felt so heavy, so hard to move all he could manage was a light brush on her face. His fingers became red with her blood.

"_No matter what, I'll never leave you" she had whispered in his chest, her face buried on him, arms tied __on his back. And he would have loved to tell her he'd stay along her side for as much as she wanted him, yet all he could make himself do was tighten his arms around her; her smile was like a sunny day on his face._

It took him a while to realize there was a persistant noise in the background. It took him even more to realize it was Lisanna speaking. The girl moved her lips frantically, but the words seemed to get scrambled in the air, reaching Fried's ears as only vague grunts and whispers.

"Wait" he asked, and he had to repeat himself many times until his voice could gather the strenght to overpower hers. "I wasn't... what did you say?"

And Lisanna, taking a deep breath, explained everything: how Levy had warned them of Grimoire Heart's arrival, how they had gone to meet the ultimately powerful dark mages and engaged them in fight, how herself and Mira had ran into a man named Azuma whose lost magic could make things explode and merge him with trees, how Asuma had used her as a hostage to force Mira into her Satan Soul mode, how Mira had chosen to sacrifice herself to protect her... by the time Lisanna was done, Fried's heart was a mess of rage, anguish and pain. His head, though, felt clearer. More organized.

"Take her to the neutral zone." He commanded getting on his feet, powered by the rage. "Take her to the neutral zone and have her taken care of. She might still... if we hurry..." the anguish took over his voice and reduced it to a whisper, and the rune-writing mage had to remind himself of the words concerning Azuma to empower it again. "She needs to be taken to Polushka-san's place as soon as possible. If you run into Master, maybe he can help too. Or Wendy, she can use healing magic." He spoke fast, moving his mouth nonstop, giving his brain no time to think, because thinking was acknoledging that Mira's life could end. Lisanna gulped and got up on her feet, shakier than Fried's.

The greenhead took out his sword and drew a flourish on the girl's direction. Two black wings sprouted from her back.

"Go. Use my power." He commanded and dried the tears from his eyes. That seemed to make a spark in Lisanna's head, for the shake in her legs calmed. She grabbed Mirajane with a great deal of pain in her face and flew off, the _yami no ecriture_ wings taking her far, far away until she dissapeared from Fried's sight.

A great pain overcame the green-headed mage's heart as soon as he lost sight of the two fairy girls. Staggering, Fried stumbled on his side, on a fallen tree. He stood there, breathless, dizzy, nauseous, holding the wood as he'd hold his own life. He didn't know whether he had told Lisanna the truth, or a lie. He had felt Mira's power weakening until there was barely any left. He didn't know, he couldn't bring himself to scan throughly, if that power was the weak link holding her to life, or the final whisper that confirmed her sentence.

He couldn't tell, and that scared him. Would she live? Would she die? Would it all be in vain?

And when the whirlpool of emotions threatened to take control over his mind and propel him into a pool of madness, one clear thought ran through the chaos and hit Fried's brain dead on.

_A__zuma_.

The one who had wounded Mirajane. The one who may have killed her. Fried gritted his teeth, the madness on his head slowly fading away.

He would find him. And he would avenge Mirajane.

His body decomposed again, swirling around the area that had served as battleground, sensing the magic around it. He could feel it. He could feel the powerful lost magic Azuma owned. And what was more, he could track it.

Rearming himself, Fried wrote another flourish with his sword, this time on himself. And as his body changed into that of a demon, as he spreaded his wings and flew, seeking for his victim, Fried took a look at the blood on his fingers, the blood of Mirajane.

_A__zuma... wherever you are, whatever your power is, I will find you. And I will kill you._

* * *

**Dammit, that was long D: I wanna apologize for taking so much time into this chapter. What was it, one month since the last one? I'll tryna explain: I got a 15-days vacation... the other 15 days were plain lazyness OTL**

**I'll try to be more active on my writing. Doubt it, since I started a job on a callcenter, but hey, maybe working will make me wanna do more relaxing stuff. Let's hope.**

**Btw if you were wondering, the cores of evil magic are: Caprico fighting Loki, Rustyrose fighting Ever and Elfman, a defeated Zancrow who was being left by Natsu and co., heading towards Ultear and Zeref, Meredy fighting Erza and Juvia, Kain Hikaru passed out, Azuma parting from Mira and Lisanna. The eight would be Master Hades, but Fried stops counting when he focuses on Lisanna.**

**So, did I say this would take 3 chapters? Changed it to 5. Yep. 3 more chapters. Next will be the battle between Fried and Azuma, 4****th**** takes place in Poluchska's (sp?) place healing everybody, and the final is the aftermath of the whole thing.**

**There won't be any strong romance until next fic. That'll have many sappy stuff to go, rest assured C:**

**Oh yeah, one last thing before I go, well, two: a) does anybody have good suggestions for an ErzaxNatsu fic? And b) does this fic become dull at some point? Or boring? Or overly dramatic? Seriously, tell me if you think I gotta improve something. I really wanna get better at this. So if you spot anything that you feel needs correcting, don't doubt about telling me.**

**C-ya! MOC2**


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